Part 2: Chapter 14: We All Fall Down

Disclaimer: I do not own Jak and Daxter; Naughty Dog does! (Surprised?)

A/N: Thanks again for the support and reviews, even though I know I left you with a really dreadful chapter last time. I'm hoping some of this (real) angst will make up for it.

To be noted: NaNoWriMo begins Tuesday, so I won't be writing this story for a little bit. Not that I've ever been that diligent before . . . Either way, I promised myself I would update this last chapter of Part 2 before November, so here you are! Please read and review. It would make my day.

OKAY, LISTEN UP: Please, please, please don't hate me at the end of this chapter. I know I'm a horrible person, and I know some of you even know where I live, but I'd appreciate it if I could live to write the rest of this story. I'll make it up to you all. I really, really promise. Don't hate me. Just enjoy the angst.

Happy reading!

I immediately wished he hadn't left. All the lightness Lex always left in his wake, the care-free feeling I always got when I spent time with him, slowly drained out and was replaced by fire and rage, returning into my bloodstream with a vengeance. Jak. That was what needed to be dealt with at the moment.

Without another instant of hesitation, I spun on my heel and marched towards the racing garages, scanning for Jak as I passed all the open gates.

Five garages in, I spotted him, and I felt my fingers curl in once more. My intrinsic need to analyze the situation—establish a plan, think out my next words—just flew out the window. Torn had always said to go with my instincts, something I had always resisted on the good conscience that my instincts were typically very misguided. Now, I had no choice in the matter. Red flooded my vision. Fire. Rage. The parallels to my nightmare earlier might have dawned on me if not for my single-mindedness.

When I caught up to him, Jak was walking out of the garage, already somewhat put-off by the looks of it. The rat on his shoulder was uncharacteristically silent.

I didn't really care.

Jak didn't appear to have noticed me, but I quickly rectified that, grabbing his shoulders and directing his back towards the nearest wall. He had good footing and the presence of mind to resist, but the fight he put up was no match for me. I had momentum, good upper-body strength, and a couple inches on him height-wise.

"What the hell?" he began to say.

I cut him off. "Stay away from me!"

Daxter, clinging clumsily to Jak's arm, shrieked his response as he reaffirmed his grip. "Hey, Ginger! Newsflash: You're the one who followed us here."

"I'm serious!"

Jak, apparently having regained his bearings, chose that moment to disengage my arms and twist out of my grasp. The move wouldn't have won any awards for grace, but perhaps one or two for efficiency or speed. Before I know what had happened, his hands were connecting with my own shoulders and pushing hard. I stumbled back a few steps, instinctively pulling back a few more when he moved to loom over me. Apparently, height was less important than I'd originally thought.

"You'd better think about whether or not you really want to get into this," Jak warned, and the monstrous tone didn't fail to send tremors down my spine. His irises were wide and dark, the blue almost completely permeated by black. With his jaw clenched and teeth bared, he looked feral, animalistic . . . like he was about to strike. I found myself thinking, not for the first time, that this person was absolute terrifying.

Before I had much time to ponder the extent to which he scared me, Daxter chipped in with his two cents.

"Yeah! 'Cause once you've crawled into this hole, you ain't comin' out alive." He smiled wickedly, and looked like he would have gone for a high-five from his companion had Jak not been intent on glaring me into oblivion. I narrowed my eyes and glowered right back, wondering if I could make hi disappear—or, better yet, explode—just by concentrating really hard.

"Don't you dare make this my fault," I growled. "You are the one that just decided to show up and steal every ounce of glory for yourself. How unthinkable it must be to imagine someone being better than you at something. It must rip you apart . . ." I drawled.

"Hey!" Jak cut in. "If you don't want anyone to steal your thunder, you might want to thin about getting some in the first place." Jak's face was as staunch as stone, his eyes just as cold. I began to wonder if I'd been mistaken about them being blue—both irises were completely black. "Don't want to get shown up with a gun? Learn to shoot one."

The rat leered. "But before that, upgrade that piece of shrapnel to some real hardware." His rodent eyes flickered down to the small, rudimentary eco pistol at my hip, and I blushed in spite of myself. "You know, something that can actually shoot more than grapes."

"I don't need your validation of my gun or my shooting abilities. This isn't about the gun, anyway!" I felt my voice gaining in volume and power. The pitch heightened, too. "This is about you and me: you should really stay away from me if you know what's good for you!"

Something snapped in my chest, an invisible restraint that had been holding me back since the moment I'd laid eyes on these two. I sprang forward, both my hands and one of my feet coming up to propel Jak away from me. "This is my city, not yours!" I screamed, voice breaking. Eyes began to turn in my direction, but for once I didn't care. "You don't belong here—not in Haven City and not on this track!" I punctuated this by lashing out with my arm again. Jak was fighting back vehemently, landing hits in any number of places, but as long as I had air in my lungs and words on my tongue, I wasn't stopping.

"That was my race, and the Underground was my cause! My friends, my family, mylife. And you've just come along—the Underground's shiny new toy—dropped right out of the freaking sky and taken everything!"

All of a sudden, something hit me hard in the stomach. Only then did I take note of my lungs struggling for staccato breaths, or the blooming spots of pain all over my body. When I opened my eyes a moment later, I was gazing at the stadium hallway from a much lower vantage point: the ground. I couldn't see the rat anywhere, but Jak was looming over me. Forget my nightmares—this was one-hundred times scarier.

His voice was low and burning. "You don't know anything about having everything stolen from you."

There was something personal, something deep and dark and unnerving about the way he said that. Pushing the limits any more was precisely what I should not do in this situation, but my mouth had a mind of its own.

Despite the ache in my knees—well, the ache in all points in my body—I managed to get my legs back under the rest of me and rose to face Jak. He was looking murderous as ever.

"No. You don't know anything. You know nothing about my friends or my family, or how it feels to have the ground ripped out from under you. And not just once—to have everything fall away over and over, practically every time you step outside. You. Know. Nothing."

Something changed in his expression, and for a moment it stumped me. While he still looked downright bursting with fury, a face reflecting my own, there was a small pull at the side of his lips. Not quite a smile—too evil for that. It was entirely unreadable.

"You're right," he said cryptically. I could feel my lips turn into a frown. "I don't know anything about that, because every time I've seen you, it's been this: A coward. Pathetic. Weak. Alone."

That stung more than a punch to the stomach.

I felt the telltale sting of saltwater behind my eyes, but refused to let them get far. I wasn't weak.

Also, he was wrong—I hadn't been alone every time he'd encountered me. But it was best for everyone that he never found out about that first instance. Never found out about what I'd seen. What I'd stood by and let happen without any form of protest. Who I'd been with. Why I'd been there. That might open some doors some doors I wasn't ready to step through yet.

I bared my teeth in what I hoped was a frightening manner—it worked for him well enough—and sent another shove in his direction. It might have been half-hearted, considering the feeble force behind it, but I still meant it. As I did the next words. "Stay away from me."

I thought the worst of it was over. I was wrong. Jak's arms flew up again, mirroring my actions and sending me into the opposite wall. My head collided solidly with the stone and I felt a groan slip out from between my lips. He was still approaching me, and I didn't want to be left vulnerable again. Somehow, I managed to regain some footing before he was directly in front of me. Far too close.

"No, you know what? You've started this, so bring it on." Precursors, I hated those black eyes, that sharp growl. "You want to talk about secrets and not knowing? You want to talk about the people in your life? Because it's always about you, right? You know, before you go throwing accusations around, let's look at the real facts: You know way more than you let on."

"I don't owe you anything."

"Want to talk about yourself, right? So let's hear it: How did you know who I was?"

My stomach clenched. No, not this. Not now. Not ever. I was going to walk away and never see him again, and I was never going to have to face this. "I told you," I gritted out, trying my best to use my anger as a cover for the lack of conviction in the lie. "I heard it around the Underground. You've probably gotten proof that I was part of it by now, so what the hell is your deal?"

"You know me, but I don't know a thing about you—"

"Let's keep it that way," I quipped. Walk away now, Shae.

His eyes were on me for an impossibly long time. Paralyzed with fear, overcome with the instinct to shrink into a tiny ball and disappear, but unwilling to be outdone, I matched his glare with one of my own.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"What are you?" I returned.

If possible, his eyes grew darker. I opened my mouth to snap back at him, but my eyes drifted to the side and found Daxter's for an instant. He was perched on his conventional spot on Jak's shoulder, eyeing his companion intensely. What I saw in that look stopped me: Fear. Warning. Worry. If the ottsel was beginning to get these vibes, perhaps I had pushed this too far.

And really, what was I doing? Getting into something I didn't want to talk about with someone I didn't want to talk to. Why? I didn't need anything from him.

As if to emphasize that point, Jak loosened his jaw and ground out, "Leave while you still can."

I let out a breath I hadn't known I was holding, inching along the wall and away from the pair. "Never will be too soon," I muttered. My actions were unjustifiably measured and cautious; somewhere in the back of my mind, I sensed the need to avoid startling anyone. Jak looked enough like a wild animal at this point.

With one final glare to the back of his head, I stormed off, out of the stadium. The sight of the rankings, with Jak's picture in the first place spot (beside the name of the elusive blue-haired mechanic—huh) sent another pang of hurt to my chest. But I tried to push all those thoughts away as I walked.

Driving a zoomer became increasingly difficult as the wind picked up, the tangles of hair blowing into my already tear-clouded eyes. To add to my dismay, it began to rain. At one point, I let out a loud yell to the sky. "AHHHHH!" Eventually, irritated by my impaired vision and the wary looks cast in my direction, I dismounted the zoomer in an empty corner and walked the rest of the way to my house.

This just keeps getting better and better, I thought.

I wasn't tired in the slightest, due to the adrenaline and rage still heating my blood, not to mention the twelve hours I'd grabbed before the race, so I had just over six hours to kill and nothing to kill it with. Upon arriving at my house, I did realize a growl in my stomach, and tried to recall the last time I'd eaten. Oh, that's right—those fruits I stole from the vendor. My stomach protested at just the thought, but if forcing food down my throat was the only way to keep myself on my feet, so be it.

With the knowledge of the six hours ahead of me, I endeavoured to cook a decent meal. Normally I just grabbed whatever piece of nutrition was most easily accessible and required the smallest preparation time, but I supposed losing a Third-Class NYFE Race for the first time in two years was a special occasion. Lex would probably be at the Fortress all night, grabbing a couple hours of sleep before patrol, so I would eat alone. I decided I probably deserved it.

An hour was behind me once I set the dishes in the sink. I still wasn't tired. My head kept reeling with thoughts of Jak and Erol and replaying scenes from my nightmare. I noticed all the picture frames were still turned down. Righting them took another fifteen minutes.

I kept doing small tasks, washing the dishes, putting away the items from my bag I still hadn't unpacked. I did some stretches, read a book, flipped through the propaganda posts on the television. The idea was to keep my mind off anything important or aggravating. By the time 0300 rolled around, I was shockingly calm. Everything seemed manageable.

Then I met Lex an hour later and all the pent-up emotions rose to the surface.

"Life really sucks right now," I mumbled into his armoured shoulder, as I'd pulled him into a hug the moment he was within reach. "And that armour is really uncomfortable," I added, pulling away as a few pieces of the suit pressed painfully into my skin.

"The boots are surprising comfy once you wear them in," he laughed. "Let's walk."

And walk we did. Lex under his pretence of performing his patrol, we were able to walk about casually without drawing too much attention. I let all my barriers down, let everything I'd been feeling since storming out of the Hideout come pouring out of my mouth in a continuous stream of words. Lex just nodded and smiled, and while I felt guilty for scarcely allowing him to get a single word in, I couldn't believe how lucky I was to have someone to whom I could vent.

"I don't know what to think anymore. I don't know what's good or bad. I mean, the Underground runs around shooting down the KG who are reigning terror through the city; but they're essentially reigning terror through the city because the Underground keeps cropping up and shooing them! "

"And Metal Heads," Lex added.

I nodded but decided not to go there. "What am I supposed to do?"

Lex just smiled. "Keep living. Just trust that everything will work out. You're asking what you should do. I'd say you're doing it."

I couldn't keep the smile off my face. As someone who never knew what to say, when to say it, and when not to say something at all, the ease with which Lex made everything seem all right again just astounded me. "Thanks. You know, sometimes you can really b—"

Then everything went to hell.

A scream tore out from somewhere around the corner. My mouth snapped shut in alarm, and Lex and I exchanged a worried look. I could see the cogs working in his head, trying to think of a logical reason why someone might be screaming—not that I could think of any—but clearly he came up empty.

"Come on," he snapped, and we both took off at a jog. Turning the corner, we saw that the object of the scream certainly had cause for the terrified noise. Krimzon Guards were already sprinting about, bellowing commands and arming their guns. I noticed two lumps on the ground, surrounded by a large amount of red. It took a minute, but when it dawned on me, I had to lean on Lex for support. The air smelled of ammunition, blood and something distinctly dark. Dark Eco. My eyes kept moving until I found the source of all the chaos.

Monster.

It was a monster. That was the only word I could think of to describe it. Horrible. Terrifying. The air was heavy with Dark Eco, I was sure of it at this point. And while the creature had a sort of Metal Head-like quality to it, it clearly wasn't such. I'd seen a lot of Metal Heads in my years working with the rebellion, and this was something completely beyond this world.

Skin a ghoulish grey, eyes black as onyx, ripping with feral hatred and what might have been Dark Eco in itself. It had claws emerging from each finger, each at least a foot in length. There were horns, two of them, protruding from the creature's skull. It was hunched over like . . . like it was about to strike. Dark Eco crackled in the air, taking the form of lightning hitting the ground threateningly. And the monster's mouth was curled into the most horrifying blood-thirsty snarl I could possibly imagine.

Only once I'd gotten over all the details did I finally allow myself to be scared. And Oh,sweet Precursors was I scared.

"Run!" I whispered harshly to Lex, only to find he'd already done just that. But in the wrong direction. No.

He was teaming up with the other KG, clicking the safety off on his gun, pulling on his helmet and running towards the monster. He lifted his gun to shoot the . . . thing, while I stood paralyzed with terror. No.No, this was not happening. Judging by the rapidly growing number of guards being thrown back, screaming in agony, thanks to the creature that was storming around and shooting Dark Eco at them—with his hands—I knew I didn't want Lex in the midst of that.

Finally finding my voice, I shouted, "Lex! Come back! No!"

He hadn't heard me. And the monster was getting closer. I backed up instinctively, reaching along the wall for a door I could escape behind, but I kept yelling all the way. "Lex! No!" Heart in my throat, I raised the pitch and volume of my voice. He had to hear me. He had to get away. Now. "Listen to me! Get back! Lex! LEX!"

His head turned. My heart fell back into my chest, though still trying to beat its way out, and my knees threatening to buckle. "Lex! Come back! Stop, it's going to kill you!"

He looked at me curiously, and despite the distance, I could still hear him. "Shae, what—?"

But I couldn't speak for my life. The monster was right behind him.

A scream was torn from my lips just as I tripped on one of the burning barrels, barely avoiding getting singed. No,no,no,no...

"NO!"

. . . Review? Please? I'm asking nicely!

Thanks for reading,

~Fishy