Been awhile huh? Going to do my best to finish this thing I swear, if anyone is still interested.

Warning: Crude Language.

"...Well shit." Jinx said after a long silence.

"Yeah, shit." Daxter glared. "The hell are all'a you even doing looking for a fourteen year old to pull your asses outta the fire anyway?! You've obviously got all these fighters and high tech shit- don't even try to say other wise- and you can't wipe your own asses?" Snapped the red head. He was getting sick and tired of all this nonsense. Of people just wanting to use him...or in this case Jak.

"Whoa, whoa. Hold on there sparky." Said Jinx, holding his hands up defensively. "We aint here to ask ole Jakky boy for help. Well, not right away. Though it does sound really bad when you put it that way..." He mumbled at the end, then louder; " We're mostly supposed to be a protection detail. We knew he'd only be a kid."

"As much as I hate to say it, Daxter has a point. Jak is...was...the best fighter and strongest channeler I've ever known, but he's just one guy!" Keira added looking a bit frazzled at trying to process all this new information.

"Keira, Daxter, I know you don't understand right now but Jak's role in the timestream is irreplacable!" Started Samos, thumping his staff on the ground for attention. "Without him to defeat the Metal Head leader the world as we know it may end! HAS been ending from the sound of Jinx's tale."

"News flash, sounds like the world still exists to me. You guys got ways to kill these things?" Daxter asked Jinx.

"Yeah but-"

"Then go fucking kill them! You're all a bunch'a grownups so act like it and clean up your own messes! We got our own problems to deal with!" Daxter snapped, cutting Jinx off before he could spout excuses. Not wanting to hear anymore of this- this nonsense the redhead spun on heel and stalked out of the alcove.

He was just so, so mad. Why couldn't anyone ever step up and handle things themselves? Part of what let the Disaster get so wide spread was people would rather suck their thumbs and hide while waiting for someone else to save them than do something about the situation themselves. Ever since they had been old enough to wander out on their own people had been sticking jobs they didn't want on Jak and himself.

Some of it had been important like fixing the walk ways around the village, and making sure the fence around the Yakkow pens were sturdy. Other things? Other things had been pointless such as running errands for Samos. Some had been downright dangerous.

Killing Lurkers who got too close to the village for one. There were plenty of strong, healthy adults who could have been sent to deal with that stuff but it always fell to Jak and Daxter. Mostly Jak because no one believed that the more cautious boy of the two actually COULD fight, but nontheless the two of them always did the dirty work.

Daxter didn't even know if any of the other villagers COULD fight. Not that they had taken time to try and learn. So yup, instead of learning how to take care of themselves the villagers had just always said 'Jak will handle it!'.

It was kinda funny how Daxter never really noticed before. He might have complained a lot sure, but it was all for show and attention. He'd never really stopped to think about it until all of this started happening. Never thought about how the people around him just-just USED him and Jak with barely even a thank you.

Now these people from the FUTURE of all places, that he didn't even KNOW, were trying to do the exact same thing and he was just-

"Having a bad day sweetie?" Then the voice of an angel cut through the red haze Daxter had been in. Blinking he saw the blonde woman from earlier smiling at him. She looked tired and a little sad but holy Precursers on a stick she had to have the biggest breasts the red head had ever seen...and she was talking to him.

"Er?" Daxter said intelligently. He could FEEL his face heating up with the effort it took to look at her eyes and not her chest. He'd been too rushed to really notice earlier but now...freaking puberty. Messing up his angry rant time when he was getting some where with it.

"You looked upset. I can relate, everything has been so crazy around here since...well just since. We- I guess we haven't actually met yet. I'm Tess. Before...all of this we were good...friends." She paused at the end like she wanted to use a different word, but Daxter didn't care. The beautiful blonde had just reminded him that she was one of them.

Pulling his brain power back north Daxter steeled himself against her pretty blue eyes and womanly figure and reminded himself that he was pissed at these people.

"Yeah toots, crazy don't even begin to cover it. So 'friend', gonna guess you know my name's Daxter." She nodded, still looking a little sad and wistful. "What'cha do around here?"

"Oh, I design the guns!" By the Precursors it was like someone had let the sun in through the clouds. If Daxter had thought she was pretty before, now she was radiant.

"Er, Guns?" He asked, having no idea what those even were. Tess smiled at him again and the young elf felt a feeling of both dread and excitement go through him.

"You have all of these powerful weapons, and you guys STILL can't beat them Metal Head things?!" Daxter was having a hard time keeping his jaw off the floor at the display of raw power he'd seen in the last hour. Not long after Tess had led him to the 'Gun Course' area Keira had showed up looking for him. The blue haired girl had drooled enough over the tech to fill an ocean. The two girls had hit it off right away, spewing technojargon and lightning fast conversation that had Daxter's head spinning.

"Yeah. They're just that tough. We can hold em off a few at a time, but they've got numbers. Full squads usually need the numbers to be even before they'll engage and even then you might lose someone." Tess sighed, placing the gun she'd been showing them down on the table with a heavy 'thunk'. Girl had some muscle that's for sure.

"The most terrible thing is they're hunting us just to exterminate us. 'Heads never eat anything they kill. Heck we're not even sure WHAT they eat, if they don't just exist on dark eco alone. That's apart of what makes them so dangerous. Even their corpses are highly toxic, almost pure dark eco. That's why..." Tess paused with a look at Daxter and Keira as if she was unsure whether or not to continue.

"That's why Jak is so important. Why he was able to do everything that he did. The Dark Eco couldn't hurt him." She finished in an almost whisper.

"What'ya mean couldn't hurt him? Dark Eco is what-" Daxter cut himself off with a jerk, eyes wide.

"...Daxter?" Keria started hesitantly. Conversation didn't go farther than that as a guy, Daxter had no idea who this particular elf was, came into the room.

"Tess? Ashelin's unit is back with that eco. Torn wants you to look over it to see if you can use any of it for ammo."

"Thanks, I'll be right there." Said the blonde elf with a small smile. "If you two want to wait here that's ok, just be careful with the guns. They're pretty dangerous if you don't know what you're doing." Tess told them before hurrying out of the room. Keira and Daxter exchanged a quick look before hurrying after her. Keira because she wanted to learn everything she could about this new technology and Daxter because he didn't want to be left in there alone. With his luck one of the heavy hunks of metal would fall off the walls and shoot him in the face.

In the biggest cavern and closest to the entrance and team of elves was rolling in some kind of hovering platform stacked with metal containers. Talking to Torn and directing the shipments was a woman with even bigger breasts than Tess, if that was possible, and what HAD to be an unnatural shade of red hair.

"...don't understand. These have obviously been frozen for decades but the material of the barrels and the markings could place them with in a few years of our era." The red head was saying, looking flustered. "I'm worried that us coming here was a big mistake, if we've started some sort of time anomaly..."

"I'm sure it's fine Ashelin. We'd notice if the fabric of the universe were unraveling around us." Said Torn.

"You mean like oh I don't know, time streams merging and life as we know it being thrown into chaos?" Ashelin, the red haird woman, sarcastically remarked. Torn looked like he didn't have anything to say to that. Luckily for him he didn't have to.

"What'cha got for me today guys?" Tess said, smoothly inserting herself into the conversation.

"Eco, mostly dark but our team was able to identify at least one barrel of yellow while we were loading. Now to find out if any of it is still usable." Said Ashelin, gesturing to the floating cart. Keira looked like she wanted to dismantle the thing then and there.

"Oooo, that's great! Hopefully there's more than one barrel of yellow, but dark can at least let us power some of the heavier gear." Tess said eyeing the shipment with an expert eye.

"Hey hold up, I thought the dark stuff was a super scary no-no. You use it to power stuff?" Daxter cut in, getting twin nasty glares from both tattoo faced elves. Actually a lot of elves seemed to have face tats of some kind, though they were all smaller and less detailed than Torn and Ashelin's.

"We've got more important things to do than play tour guide right now. Either make youself useful helping to unload this eco or get lost." Torn dismissed.

"Yesh, I can see manners arn't somethin' they teach you in the future. Right up there with doing your own dirty work." Daxter shot back. Torn looked like he was either going to bust a blood vessel or shoot himself his right eye was twitching so fast. Ashelin likewise gave a heavy sigh and placed a hand over her face. Daxter though he heard her mumble something about not missing his mouth, but he wasn't sure.

"Listen here, rat." Stressed Torn, "We've got a big operation to pull off and I don't have TIME for you insubordinate-"

"Look out!" Shouted one of the Elves unloading the eco. The hovering platform was sputtering, the propulsion underneath going out and causing the stacks of eco barrels to teeter dangerously. They heard one crash down on the other side, and the world dissolved into slow motion as Daxter saw the top most container start to fall...directly above Tess.

"Aw shit, MOVE!" Shouted Daxter. Like most people caught by surprise she only stared upwards in shock at the approaching barrel, lid already coming off. Not even thinking the red and blond haired elf felt his body surge into motion. Daxter didn't even realize what he was doing until he felt his hands collide with Tess's soft flesh, pushing her out of the way of the falling eco.

There was a brief look of shock, or maybe horror, on her face as the now open barrel knocked Daxter to the stone floor. Said boy felt all the air in his lungs go out in a little 'whoosh' as the now empty container knocked him to the floor and bounced off. He barely had enough time to suck that air back in before it left him again in a scream of agony as the contents of the barrel splashed over him.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY FREAKING PRECURSORS OW OW OWOWOWOWOWOW!" Daxter screamed at the intense burning feeling throughout his body. He kept his eyes tightly shut to keep the eco out as he flailed around, trying to get the stuff off.

He heard shouting over his own and after what felt like an eternity but was probably only a minute or two Daxter was knocked off his feet again by the force or something liquid hitting him again. As more of this new liquid washed over him the intense pain dulled to the point where he was able to sit up and try to block the spray.

"Ok, Ok I'm good! Quit spraying that stuff at me!" Almost imediatly the barrage ceased. Wiping liquid off his face Daxter chanced opening an eye. When the intesne agony didn't return he opened them the rest of the way and looked around. Everyone looked like they'd seen a ghost, or were ghosts from as white as they were.

Tess was holding some sort of large hose, the end still dripping with water. Daxter guessed that was the second liquid he'd gotten hit with. What was the first? Looking down at himself the red head felt like passing out. Giving of it's faint sickly glow was dark eco. Everywhere. On his clothes, all around him, even some crackling in the air. Much of it was diluted by water but it was still there.

Daxter wanted to starting screaming and clawing at himself. This stuff had KILLED Jak and he was just sitting in it like he was having a picnic!

Huh.

Wait.

Just sitting in it? He had to admit it still stung a little but even now the pain was fading. He wasn't absorbing it or anything, but it didn't seem to be really hurting him anymore either. Nothing was melting or falling off, or turning funny colors like people sometimes did with eco poisoning.

Blinking, Daxter looked at the crowed again in confusion before getting to his feet and brushing off. As he made his way out of the mix of water and eco the wall of elves quickly back pedaled. Nerves picking up Daxter decided to deal with this the same way he would any other situation.

"See baby? You ain't got nothing to fear with the Daxtinator here. I barely even felt that." He bluffed, flashing what he hoped was a winning smile in Tess's horror stricken direction. No one seemed to know what to say, even Samos was ashen and dumbfounded. Though with him it was more of a mint green.

Pushing his way through the crowed, Jinx surveyed the situation. Lighting up the cigar sticking out of his mouth he eloquently summed up the situation.

"Well, shit."