Chapter 4
The Best of the Worst

High-Security Prisoner #0074 – 3M 15D 12h 27m

A little more than three months had gone by since he'd first arrived in the world of Haven. Alexander had been keeping track by transmuting tally marks into the stone walls of his high-security prison cell. Not that those were the only things he was transmuting.

If anything, he was using the abundance of stone around him to practice his transmutation and make sure the skills didn't fall into the obscurity of forgetfulness. He was allowed to do this in return for the favor he'd done the Krimzon Guards once before, though he'd had little else to do since. And once Alex told them that it was impossible for him to transmute the Shock-cuffs, the Krimzon Guards ignored it altogether.

By this point, Alexander had completely gotten used to the cuffs on his wrists. They no longer caused any pain, and the extra weight actually helped by serving as resistance when he exercised daily. And his efforts were really beginning to show. Once in a while he transmuted a mirror, and he noticed that his build was starting to become more muscular. He also noticed that his hair was getting out of control, so once in a while he would transmute a pair of scissors and cut it short.

But while most of his time was spent in the cell, there were the occasional breaks. Once in a while they got to take individual showers. There was also the weekly luncheon that all the prisoners shared. His friends Azelas and the others had long since been told about their existence within a video game. It had taken them a while to swallow it, but by the next luncheon they had worked it out.

What had followed was a barrage of questions about what he knew about the worlds around them, what was going to happen in this game, and where Alex had come from. Alex convinced them to let the future remain a mystery, but he gladly told them about his previous exploits and the places he'd been to, including the real world.

But that had been a while ago. Lately the direction of conversation had turned around, with Alexander asking questions about his new friends, and what specifics they could tell him about. And when he didn't feel like it a certain week, they would talk about whatever was on someone's mind. Normal conversations.

As the five of them settled into their seats at a table, Balke slowly cut into the thing resembling beef on his plate with his plastic utensils. "The Baron just keeps on grinding through those guys for those dark experiments, doesn't he?"

Relatively normal conversations.

Seth sighed. "You don't need to tell me. It's sick having to sleep through that kind of stuff." He paused as he took a sip of water. "Who is he using for those experiments, anyway?"

Alex swallowed some food before remarking, "Definitely not his own guards."

"No," Azelas argued, "I saw some guys with tattoos getting dragged onto that platform. Betcha anything it's some guys who defected or screwed up really badly."

"Seein' a lot more prisoners than any o' those, though," Jinx added. "Especially that one guy who keeps on livin' through them. The one with the greenish hair."

Alexander grimaced. "Yeah, Jak. Not a scratch on him yet."

Yet, Joumae repeated. What a wonderful part of the English language.

Balke had been about to take a bite, but he stopped as a thought occurred to him. "Prisoners... You don't think they'll get us under–?"

"I really doubt that," Alex cut in. "Injecting Dark Eco into a person shouldn't have any results besides death. So there are only two groups of people the Baron would want to put into that chair. People it might actually work on, and people that really piss him off. As sadistic as he and Erol are, I'm pretty sure they'd get tired of throwing away horribly mutated bodies if they got no results."

Azelas chuckled. "I don't know about Erol, but I'll agree that the Baron doesn't like repetition like that." He finished his glass of water and stood up. "Well, what do you say we have another go at it?"

Alexander thought about it, and stood up as well. "Sure, I don't see why not." Everyone else in the room, most of which had been reduced to mindless automatons, recognized this signal and immediately got to work on moving the tables out to the edges of the room, to form another arena. Alex and Azelas took opposite sides of this makeshift arena and assumed unarmed fighting stances.

Two weeks previously, Joumae had suggested the idea of practicing hand-to-hand combat during his stay in prison. Alex had then suggested it out loud to his friends, and Azelas had agreed to be his mentor. It was a way to get up and moving each week, and it didn't hurt for Alexander to have that basic skill. It would help his entire fighting style to learn how to fight unarmed. And Azelas seemed to know quite a bit about it, so he was a great teacher for him.

Azelas's stance was more defensive, with his body oriented along a diagonal with his balance on his left foot behind him. He held one arm in front of his torso, and the other at his side. Alexander was a bit smaller and weaker than Azelas, so his stance was similar but more oriented for evasion. His feet were a little further apart, with the balance on his forward right foot.

Alex was, of course, nervous. He was no stranger to fighting – or pain, for that matter – but rarely had he ever counted on the strength of his own fists. Kicks he was more comfortable with, but his punches were lacking in strength. And this was their second session. The first session had consisted of him trying to attack Azelas, only for the bigger man to quickly exploit the weaknesses in his attacks and stance to send him crashing. It had been a disillusioning experience.

"We're going to focus on defense this time," Azelas told him. "I'm going to attack you just like you did to me last week. Just focus on blocking my attacks."

With that, Azelas charged at Alexander. He threw a punch in Alexander's direction, which Alex guarded against with his right arm. Unfortunately, he'd underestimated the force of the punch, and he recoiled a little bit. This sent him off balance, and he staggered backward in an attempt to regain his balance. It was at this point that Azelas stepped back and kicked Alexander in the chest, knocking him to the ground.

Alexander groaned, but worked hard to get back up. He was given a lift up from Azelas, which had become common for these sessions. As they got back into their stances, Azelas said, "If your opponent is stronger than you, than you need to figure out how to deal with the force coming your way."

He then attacked again. When a punch came Alex's way, he tried to dodge it. But he was sent down a couple more times when he couldn't dodge the follow-up punch quite quickly enough. Through practice, his punch dodging had become a bit better.

After dodging a few punches, Alex felt that Azelas was getting too close to him, so he tried backing up to clear some space. But as soon as he quickened his backward pace, Azelas rushed in and kicked him back to the ground.

As Azelas sighed and helped Alexander back up again, a voice started calling into the circle. "Hey! You two!" It was the voice of a Krimzon Guard pushing his way into the circle.

Jinx stepped forward. "Hey, man, we've already cleared this with Torn. Just ask 'im, it's fine!"

The Krimzon Guard shook his head. "I know that. I need those two," he replied, gesturing with his rifle toward Azelas and Alexander. "A special summons from the Commanders. C'mon, let's go!"

Alexander raised an eyebrow, but Azelas nodded and started walking toward the guard. Alex quickly followed suit, catching his breath. As they left the cafeteria, the last sounds they heard of it was the other prisoners setting the tables back to their original places.

It had been a while, but Alexander immediately recognized the old conference room. He and Azelas stood near the entrance, staring down most of the Krimzon Guard Commanders. Although it seemed that a few of them were missing. Alex sighed and said, "What, another errand?"

Torn smirked. "Yeah, we need both of you to help us out today."

Alexander was confused ever so slightly. "Both of us?" he asked, looking up at his taller friend.

"Azelas has that one Shock-cuff for a reason, boy," Erol snapped in response. "And he's taken tasks like these before, long before you arrived."

"With that out of the way," Torn cut in, "let's get right to it. We've recently constructed a drilling platform some distance outside the city for drilling Eco. It's a large facility with plenty of security, so we also use it as a waypoint for Eco tankers coming in from the Wasteland."

"There's a tanker coming in this afternoon," one of the other unknown Commanders stated. "But we suspect that there's a large force of Metal Heads following the tanker to the Drill Platform, with the intention of taking the Eco and sabotaging our operation there at the same time. We're doing our best to accumulate as large a force there as possible, but we'll need as much skill as we can get there as quickly as we can. We can't get so many there in so little time."

Azelas took this all in, nodding the whole way. "You're sure of this attack?"

"Completely," Torn replied. "Fact is, we got a report from the pilot about the pursuit, but we think the Metal Heads assume we haven't noticed. So we're going to ambush them, and continue normally up until then."

Alexander sighed. This certainly didn't sound easy at all. His reserves of magic were limited, so he'd need to be clever about what techniques to use in taking care of the threat. "Alright. Anything else?"

There was a bit of a pause, but then Torn grimaced. "Yeah. One more thing. There's a... very important person that's going to be there at the Drill Platform as an Acting Commander. She needs to be protected at all costs."

Both Alex's and Azelas's eyebrows shot up. "She?" they echoed simultaneously. Azelas quickly followed up incredulously with: "You're not saying that–"

"Yeah," Torn muttered. "Ashelin Praxis is coming along for this operation."

Alexander was wide-eyed and slack-jawed for just a moment, and then regained control of his face. That was another integral character that was all too recognizable from the games. Ashelin, the Baron's rebellious daughter. Alex was definitely going to have to make sure she didn't die here.

Torn looked back up at them again. "Alright, you know what your objectives are. Off with you, then."

Azelas and Alexander were escorted back out of the conference room. As they were taken through the halls, Alex glanced up at his friend and said, "You've been on these things before?"

"I was going to ask you the same thing," Azelas remarked somewhat coldly. "The answer is obvious, of course." He paused for a moment, and then said, "They've sent me on a couple of missions. How many have you done?"

Alex looked down at the ground. "This is my second one."

"Hmph. Surprised you haven't done more, really," Azelas replied. "With your talents and all."

They went through another door, and Alex was surprised to find themselves back in the prison section. "Huh? Aren't we going to...?"

"We're going through the Warp Gate," Azelas stated quickly. The guards took them to a small platform in the middle of the room to the left, above which a small, hollow, circular device was suspended. As they approached the hoop-like object, it started to glow a bright blue, and the space within it began to warp and waver.

Warp Gates? Joumae repeated, slightly confused. Two-way teleporters? Why haven't we encountered these before?

Alex mentally explained that Warp Gates had been far more common in the time period of the first Jak and Daxter game. And they apparently couldn't be made any larger, so only one person could go through at a time. There were better ways of transporting large numbers of people. As he thought about it, Alex realized that it was probably only the Baron's places that had any Warp Gates at all, in all Haven City.

And in the middle of his reverie, one of the guards impatiently shoved him forward, sending him stumbling into the Warp Gate. A bright flash occurred, and Alexander disappeared.

A long distance away from Haven City, another bright flash occurred, and the teenager appeared through a similar Warp Gate. Still in mid-stumble, he subsequently crashed into the metal beneath him. He wanted time to deal with the pain that followed, but the knowledge that more people were on the way prompted him to scramble forward, just in time to let Azelas land right on the spot he'd been in a few seconds ago.

Alexander finally took the time to look up at his surroundings. All around him was a giant structure made out of blue metal. It was truly expansive, and the sound of machinery was all too present in this place. He took a look behind him, and he saw that he was on a platform with a bunch of control panels a distance behind the Warp Gate. Only he and Azelas had come through the Warp Gate, but there were already a sizable number of Krimzon Guards there already.

As Alexander stood up, he felt a little light-headed. At first this came as a strange thing to him, but then he realized exactly what this place was. He tentatively walked over to the far side of the platform – which was without rails – and looked down. And froze.

"We're probably a few miles up," Azelas remarked, noticing Alex's shock.

The Drill Platform was situated around the top of an absolutely gigantic drill, which was rotating quickly and grinding into the earth below them. Of course, Alexander had already been aware of this, but the game, as usual, had failed to capture the sheer scale of it. But a third-person perspective often did that anyway.

"What's going on here?" a sharp female voice demanded. Alexander looked back up and searched for the source of the voice. He quickly found it.

It was a young woman with dark red hair in dreadlocks. She had a round, almost cute face with the usual Krimzon Guard tattoos on it. She wore a dark blue, long-sleeved vest that was clearly too small for her torso, as well as a red top beneath it that clung tightly to her chest. There were some pieces of armor on her arms and legs, and a pistol holstered at her hip. She also wore dark blue pants with a belt that had a red ruby at the center and some strategic holes along the sides of her legs. And she wore black boots that started just below her knee. It really was a cunning outfit, all things considered.

Ashelin stared at Alexander for a moment, and then looked over to Azelas. "Hold it, we're getting prisoner reinforcements now? What does my father think he's doing, sending a kid?!"

Azelas smirked. "This kid is actually very special, ma'am. He's capable of a lot more than he looks. Don't worry, he'll be a big help in this operation."

The Baron's daughter scrutinized Alexander for another moment, making the boy feel a bit more nervous and intimidated. "Who are you, then?"

Alex swallowed first, and then replied, "Ale–" He cleared his throat, and tried again. "Alexander."

Ashelin perked up an eyebrow, and then looked over to the opposite side of the platform, near the controls. "Erol! I want to speak with you!"

Alexander glanced in that direction, and found the Commander there indeed. As Ashelin walked over to him, Azelas looked to Alex and said, "Nice first impression."

"Oh, gimme a break!" Alexander shot back with a scowl.

Can you blame him? Damn, she's hot! Joumae exclaimed, making Alex groan and roll his eyes.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the platform, out of Alexander's earshot, Erol looked over to Ashelin and said, "Yes, Ashelin?"

Ashelin kept her scowl. She didn't like having to deal with Erol in the slightest, but he was the only other Commander present at the moment. Jabbing her thumb back at the prisoners, she said, "What can you tell me about the kid with the short ears over there? Why is he here?"

Erol glanced over Ashelin's shoulder and grinned. "Ah, him! Well, he's proven to be a remarkable asset before, so it seemed appropriate."

The young woman still wasn't convinced. "What exactly can he do, Erol?"

Erol's grin didn't fade. "Very well, because it's you," he replied smugly. "That boy is capable of destructive power unlike anything anyone's ever seen in this world. He used that power to lead an escape of an entire low security prison block, knocking out three guards in the process. Believe me, we'd be in big trouble if he didn't have those two Shock-cuffs on."

Ashelin looked back at Alexander, who seemed to be chatting with Azelas. Then, after a moment, she said, "What'd he do to get into low-sec in the first place?"

"Ah, um..." Erol mumbled, his mirth gone in his hesitation.

She only gave him a single second. Ashelin quickly whipped around and snapped, "You mean you just picked him up off the street because he has short ears!?"

"No! No, of course not!" Erol sputtered. "He, um... That is, he... er..." He glanced from side to side for some support, but the other KG were cleverly avoiding the two of them. When Ashelin's glare didn't subside, giving him no chance for recovery, he muttered, "Well... yes, but..."

Ashelin let a silence fall between them, and then said, "I'll ordering an investigation of his case as soon as we get back. Something tells me he doesn't deserve to be here." She then turned on her heel and walked away confidently.

As soon as she was gone, Erol scowled and cursed under his breath. Alexander was too important a tool to just give up!

About a half hour passed on the Drill Platform with nothing to do, except watch more reinforcements arrive. And then things began to happen. Ashelin and Erol called all of the guards present to gather on the platform.

Then, everyone watched as a gigantic aircraft started to fly in from the distance to the right. It was a wide ship with a flat top and a box-like structure below it. After a few moments, Alexander realized that he recognized this ship from a certain mission in the game. From that realization, he could recognize that the tanker had many turret ports along the top and underside of the gigantic single wing structure.

The aircraft slowed down and hovered above them, and slowly lowered down, rotating so that the ship's rear came to a rest right on the edge of the platform. A gigantic door opened up in the lower part of the ship, which created a ramp onto the platform. Just beyond it was a gigantic hull full of black barrels.

The sound of many, many guns being cocked was heard as they saw the barrels. A few seconds passed in silence. Azelas, who'd been given a spare KG rifle, lowered his gun and muttered, "Where's the guests?"

Erol grimaced. "I don't know, but let's get this Eco out of here before they might arrive. Go get the Eco, men!"

Many of the guards rushed into the ship and each grabbed a barrel. Slowly, the many stashes of Eco came out of the ship and became placed on the corner of the platform. Alexander watched this all with a fair amount of confusion. If Metal Heads had been in pursuit, where were they now? The ship was stopped, so this would be a perfect time!

"Can't some Metal Heads camouflage themselves?" Alex wondered aloud.

All at once, the motion on the platform paused. The few KG that were still on the ramp let go of their barrels and cocked their rifles toward the front of the ship. Slowly, they advanced into the dark hull. Everyone was tense as they quickly pressed forward. But about a minute later, the guards returned and reported that every inch of that hull was empty space.

Erol shrugged. "Alright, then." He looked over to some guards at the control panels and said, "Fire up that Gate. We'll send these to the guards at the Power Station and get this Eco into the system."

Alexander shook his head. "I don't know about that," he stated aloud. "We know the Metal Heads pursued the ship, so..."

"Shut up, convict," Erol snapped. "You're not in any position to be giving advice on an operation like this. Let's get this Eco going and leave."

A couple of guards started moving one of the barrels of Eco toward the Warp Gate. Alexander stared at the barrel for a moment...

...and then panicked. "Wait!!" he exclaimed, dashing toward the guards. Just when the guards were about to send the barrel through the Warp Gate, Alexander yanked it away from them and chucked it to the side violently. The barrel toppled over, and the top fell off.

Alexander suddenly felt a high-voltage shock go through his body, and he toppled to the ground in a seizure. Erol had pulled out a small radio-like object and sent the signal to activate his Shock-cuffs.

Azelas quickly snatched the radio from Erol's hands, and the shocking stopped. "Stop that, you fool! Look!"

Everyone looked at the barrel that had been thrown aside. The top was open, and it was slowly rolling around, revolving in a circle. But that was all that was happening.

Ashelin scowled, with her hand straying toward the gun at her hip. "There's no Eco inside that thing..." Eyes widening, she shouted, "Shut down that Warp Gate!"

The Warp Gate deactivated. The barrel continued to roll around, slowing down ever so slightly. Finally, it had revolved to the point where everyone on the other side of the platform could see the inside of the barrel. It was dark and empty, save for a bright golden orb...

With an overbearing collective hissing sound, all of the other barrels' tops popped open, and a couple of small, scorpion-like Metal Heads with large tails crawled out of each one. They started moving toward the pack of Krimzon Guards, who immediately began to fire.

"Damn!" Ashelin cursed, firing a small burst of red energy from her pistol that took out one of the creatures. "An ambush of Stingers!"

Azelas quickly grabbed Alexander's limp body and pulled him onto the ramp of the ship, out of the line of fire. He shook him violently, muttering, "Come on, we need you now! Wake up!"

Even with all of the Krimzon Guards shooting at the Metal Heads, the targets were simply too small for all of them to be taken out, and the guards soon started to become overwhelmed.

Azelas noticed this, and shouted, "We need some Green over here! Alex is out cold!"

Ashelin glanced over to him, hesitated for a moment, but then backed away from the Metal Heads. She looked all over the platform, and then noticed something in the back corner. There were a couple of red crates with the Krimzon Guards' emblem on them. Ashelin fired at one of the crates, breaking it apart. In the remains was a small black box with green plus signs on each face.

"Jackpot," Ashelin muttered, running over to the Health Pack. She knelt down to pick it up, but then hesitated as she realized that she would be the one getting healed if she touched it. So she sandwiched it between two fragments of the ex-crate and carried it as such to Alexander.

When she got close enough, she let the Health Pack drop onto Alex's body. The Health Pack disappeared on impact, and green energy absorbed itself into his body. Alexander's eyes shot open, and he started coughing a little.

Azelas lifted him up. "C'mon, kid. We need ya here. We're not gonna last long!"

Alexander blinked, his vision only beginning to clear. He managed to look over to the side. The Krimzon Guards were being forced back by the Metal Heads, and some guards faded away as they were stabbed by the large sharp tails of the Stingers.

C'mon, fake unconsciousness long enough for Erol to get killed, Joumae suggested in a hushed voice. Please?

Alexander groaned and stood up with Azelas's support. He surveyed the scene once again, and immediately decided on a course of action. He held out his hand, in which the Time Fracture Lockshield appeared in an inky black smoke. "Ch... Chronos..." He muttered, doing his best to summon up some strength. After a moment, his eyes widened as he confidently intoned, "Chronos Break!"

Time stopped for everyone except himself once again. Alex stumbled a little bit as the magic power left him, but he recomposed himself in the time stop and immediately rushed toward the Metal Heads. He slashed at each and every one of the Stingers that were there, and even managed to save a few guards that would've died in the next second.

To everyone else, there was one moment where all was lost, and the next moment in which the Metal Heads all died at once. Alexander stood on the other side of the swarm of Metal Heads, grinning at them.

But then the weakness caught up with Alexander again, and he blacked out.

3M 19D 8h 56m

Alexander was woken up roughly by a Krimzon Guard, who escorted him outside of the Fortress. He was put into a prisoner carrier, and then taken through the Industrial Sector of Haven City, and then along the makeshift "highway" above the east Bazaar district, until they finally reached the Palace square.

The carrier dropped down in front of the large, wide stairs to the gigantic Palace door. Alexander climbed up the stairs along with the guards. One of the guards presented a violet-colored security pass, and the huge door unlocked and opened up.

The first room of the palace was somewhat bare, with a few control panels, many banners hanging on the walls, and an elevator down the hall to the left. The guards and Alexander stepped onto the elevator. After a few moments, the elevator gave a sudden start and then very quickly began to rise, throwing Alexander off his feet. They kept on going higher and higher up the elevator shaft, until a few seconds later it finally slowed down and came to a stop. Alexander actually managed to have a second of hangtime with his momentum.

A security door opened up for them, and they stepped through to a very large hall. Alexander had thoughts of a metallic and foreboding version of Disney Castle, but quickly stifled them as they were brought to the large metal door on the left leading to the throne room.

The door slowly opened, and Alex was escorted through. He walked along a red carpet leading up to a staircase that was underneath the throne, in which Baron Praxis sat above him. Along the sides of the carpet were all of the Commanders of the Krimzon Guard, including Torn and Erol. Ashelin was standing nearest to the throne as well.

The generic guards that had escorted him in left the room. Alexander was confused, to say the least. "What the heck's going on now?"

Ashelin smirked. "I ordered an investigation of your case, Alexander Karsath. Turns out that you were incarcerated without any charges whatsoever before you tried to escape from prison the first time."

Torn nodded. "That, along with the work you've done for us, pretty much makes all of your subsequent charges null and void. Especially with what you did at the Drill Platform."

Alexander was going a little slack-jawed at this point. "I'm... I'm going free?!"

Baron Praxis hadn't lost his characteristic edge. "Don't get ahead of yourself, boy. It's not as simple as that." He stood up from his throne and started to walk down to their level. "But I will admit that your actions at the Drill Platform were vital. You protected my daughter and a high-ranking Commander with your abilities, and you prevented a potential sabotage of the shield wall and the city's safety. So believe me when I say that I would be happy to set you free."

Alex scowled. "But..." he muttered, indicating that the Baron should continue.

The Baron stopped a small distance away from Alexander. "But, Erol has made an argument against your case, which I'm inclined to agree with. The extent of your powers, along with the suddenness and accuracy with which you can use them, make your freedom a dangerous thing for us to have."

Alexander glanced around at the people present. Erol was grinning, and Ashelin was shooting the Commander a glare. Torn seemed to be in grudging agreement.

"And frankly," the Baron went on, "we don't know too much about you. You're a kid with short ears and strange powers, so it's apparent you're not like us at all. So there are two conditions that you'll have to meet before we'll grant you your freedom."

Erol stepped forward. "One, you must tell us about yourself, where you're from, and where you got your abilities. And two, you must pledge yourself to servitude under Baron Praxis as a part of the Krimzon Guard."

Alex's eyes widened. He needed to become a KG in order to get out of prison!? That... that was bad, right? The Baron and the Krimzon Guard were the enemies after all... And he most certainly didn't want to reveal that he was from another world, which would be the only explanation that would convince them at this point.

"Well," Torn cut in, trying to get the hearing moving, "what do you have to say for yourself?"

Alexander hesitated, biting his lower lip. He then took a step back and mumbled, "Just... let me... think about it for a minute. It's... a kinda hard decision."

He then closed his eyes and sought Joumae's advice. Well... you know, the thing you've got to realize is that the Krimzon Guard do protect this city. And there's really nowhere else for you to go. Being a Krimzon Guard means you won't gain their ire, and you'll be able to move around and learn about the city some more in the time remaining. You've still got the better part of two years before the gameplay starts, and you'll be fine as long as you don't do anything that cripples the game's delicate series of events.

Alex opened his eyes again and sighed. "Alright." He scanned the room and all of its occupants for a moment, and then looked up at the Baron who was back on his throne. "I'm Alexander Karsath. The fact is that I'm from a completely different world beyond this one." He paused for a moment, and decided not to talk about the video game aspect of his situation. "A world where magic exists, as well as weapons with special properties."

"I've spent some time traveling to several different worlds," he went on. "Just like you have the Metal Heads here, each of the other worlds have some version of their own monsters. And just like you have Eco here, each world has different properties that empower its residents." Alexander summoned the Lockshield in an inky black smoke. "Through this weapon, I've been able to attain some of those abilities and properties. And with these abilities, I've tried to go around to different worlds and help people fight against these monsters. I've been dubbed by a few as the 'Interference,' because my mere presence subtly alters the course of events in some way, and I can do more if I make the effort."

Smooth and clean, Joumae remarked as he finished up.

After a few moments, Torn said, "So you came to this world to help us fight the Metal Heads?"

Alex thought about his response for a moment. "Sorta. Thing is, my coming here involved a... small accident, with no way for me to get back out. Things kinda got out of hand from there. I got stuck here."

There were some nods as this information sunk in to all those present. Then Erol spoke up by saying, "I assume this means you'll be joining us willingly, then?"

Alex sighed. There wasn't any other way. He took in a deep breath to compose himself, and then said, "I have a few small conditions, first."

"Go for it," Ashelin replied.

Alexander nodded. "Alright. One, what I've told you just now doesn't leave this room. It's not the kind of information that everyone needs to know."

The Baron shrugged. "It wouldn't be the first thing. What else?"

"Well," Alex continued, "once a week the high-security prisoners have lunch all together. Azelas has promised to tutor me in hand-to-hand combat, since I usually use a weapon. So..."

Torn nodded. "Yeah, you can set time aside to visit during that time. No problem."

Alexander sighed. So far so good. "Okay. ...Just one more thing." He looked around at all of the Commanders, and then grinned sheepishly. "Is it possible for me to avoid having my face tattooed? I just don't think it'd fit me."

To his surprise, a small wave of laughter echoed across the room, with the Baron giving great guffaws in response. "Hahahaaa!" he laughed. "Some conditions! Don't worry about it, just as long as you promise to serve me!"

Alexander smirked a little at this, relieved a bit by this response. Now the time had come to take the pledge and become a Krimzon Guard. He took a deep breath, hesitated, and lifted his hands up. "These come off, right?"

Affirmative nodding in response. Alex nodded back, and then said, "Alright, I swear – in front of all you witnesses – that I will serve Baron Praxis, the Krimzon Guard, Haven City, and its citizens to protect them from the Metal Heads, under pain of..." He hesitated for a moment. "...being imprisoned once again. This I swear."

The Baron grinned and stood up from his throne. "And we'll hold you to it! Guards!"

The throne room's door opened back up. The Krimzon Guards that had been waiting outside came back into the room, holding a familiar-looking remote. The guard holding the remote pressed the blue button on it. Alex gasped as the blades that he'd gotten used to stabbing into his flesh retracted, reopening the wounds.

The other guard walked over to him and somehow managed to get the Shock-cuffs to each split apart, and Alexander soon found himself without bonds at all. There were scars where the cuffs had stabbed into him, but they would heal. At this point they'd probably never disappear, but they would heal.

Alexander, overwhelmed with relief, dropped to his knees while holding his wrists. He was free! Out of prison! He wouldn't be stuck for two years!

The Baron chuckled. "Alright, kid. Let's find you some proper clothes and a place to stay. Welcome to the ranks."

Alex looked back up at the Baron... and found himself smiling. "Thanks. I won't let you down."

Yet, Joumae reminded him. Whatever you do, don't let go of that wonderful word. We won't betray him yet.

Disclaimer: Alexander, Joumae, the Lockshield, the overall concept of The Interference, and related concepts and characters are the intellectual property of Newbie-Spud. Kingdom Hearts, Fullmetal Alchemist, and Chrono Trigger and their characters and concepts belong to Square-Enix and its business partners. Jak and Daxter and related concepts and characters are the property of Naughty Dog, Inc.